Deep In the Meadow
by QuillInkAndParchment
Summary: Cornelia Tegan of District Ten is called in the Reaping of the 49th Annual Hunger Games. Will the odds be in her favor?
1. And may the odds

**((This character just hit me like a ton of bricks after I (finally!) saw the movie. For some reason - even though she never appeared during the multiple times I read the books. Oh, well. I may continue this, but I do have to finish my other story first...I feel kind of obligated. : ) But you never know...reviews and adds to alerts may help the chances of updates. **

**I own nothing, of course. Any recognizable character, the Hunger Games, the Capitol, the Districts of Panem, etc belong to Suzanne Collins. )) **

The sun is shining on the day her name is pulled from a giant glass ball, up there on the stage in front of the Justice Building, and it's all she can do to keep the tears at bay.  
>No one will volunteer for her. She knows it. They know it.<br>And they know that she knows.  
>But she understands. Of all the names to be called, hers is the best - she's seventeen. She's strong. She's fast. She's clever.<br>She knows it. They know it. No one will take her place. So she stands and looks out over the crowds of her District. And she offers them a smile.  
>In the fields, the cows are lowing. The distant bleat of sheep in the pastures drifts on the wind. In the stables, the horses are chewing their grain. But in the town square, everything is silent.<p>

Cornelia Tegan has been reaped. District favorite. The girl who could look at an animal and tell, in just a moment, what was plaguing it. They knew her. They loved her. They were losing her. Possibly forever.  
>Now, she's struggling to breathe, looking down over the swarm of faces as the Capitol representative slithers toward the other glass ball, straightens his tailcoat, and reaches one gloved hand to catch a slip of paper.<br>Astor Shaw.  
>And the crowd sighs, because he nearly escaped. He nearly made it through his young life without being called in the Reaping. He's eighteen. He's an established Wrangler. His girlfriend is crying into her best friend's shoulder. He'd be better off at home.<br>But, still, no one volunteers to take his place.  
>She guesses they figure that, of all the twelve-to-eighteens, they are the best bet. District Ten hasn't yet had a Victor.<p>

The sun is still shining as she shakes his hand. As she's taken aback by the sadness in his eyes. As they are both led into the Justice Building. To be handed into the custody of the Capitol, and taken to the Games that will, like as not, take their lives.  
>And she's heard that those in the Districts nearest the Capitol have begun to train.<br>Her hands have never held a weapon. She knows how to heal, not to kill. She's never killed a thing. She can't do this.  
>They lead her into a well-furnished room and close the door, and she stares at the shaking hands in her lap that have to be hers, but feel so far away.<br>She's going to die.  
>She's going to die in the Arena. She knows it. How will she live, if she can't kill?<br>The door opens, and she is allowed three minutes. Three minutes with her family, to kiss her little brothers, her little sisters, to hold and be held by her parents. And then, faster than she can feel their loss, they're gone. And she's alone.  
>So she takes a breath to steady herself, and smooths the skirt of her deep-green dress. Brushes at her caramel-colored hair. Blinks tears from her eyes.<br>And Cornelia prays that she can be stronger than she knows how to be. But her heart is breaking. Her lungs are weakening. And she knows she doesn't stand a chance.  
>Not really.<p> 


	2. The best war game

The train is fast, faster than anything she's ever been on, faster than any horse that ever lived. It nearly makes Cornelia sick to look out the window.  
>The trees are moving so, so fast, a blur, a steady stream of leaves and trunks.<p>

They have no real mentor because they have no Victors. So the Capitol has assigned them one, instead, and the man who drew their names tells them he'll meet them in the Capitol.  
>Which means, most likely, he's some crazy green-haired freak, too, who doesn't know a weapon from a tree trunk.<br>At least he might, might, be able to win them some sponsors.  
>If they're lucky.<p>

Cornelia and Astor spend most of the first leg of their journey totally silent, sequestered in their own rooms or sitting in the main room without talking.  
>On the first sleepless night, he speaks first.<p>

"Don't you wonder why we've never had a Victor?" he asks. He's holding a glass of some kind of jewel-bright juice, and he sips it every so often. "District Ten?"  
>Cornelia looks up, shakes her head.<br>"I've always just figured raising cattle isn't the best war-game," she replies.  
>He scoffs, in part surprised by her humor and in part disgusted with the notion that she never wondered.<br>"I don't get it," he mutters, and he tosses a shiny apple, better and brighter than any she's ever seen before, between his hands.  
>"Maybe it will be one of us, this year," she says, and he looks at her as if she has lost her mind.<br>And maybe she has.  
>"Yeah," he says, though he doesn't sound convinced. "Maybe."<p>

The Capitol is bigger and brighter and more colorful than she could have imagined, so much so that it hurts her eyes. The clean, sharp lines, the clean, sharp angles. None of the natural, organic structures of her District.

They eat lamb stew for dinner, and she wonders, vaguely, if the lamb came from home.  
>If it was one of Conway's lambs, or Harrington's.<p>

She stumbles into a shower more complicated than she has the energy for, and emerges smelling like an odd flower-garden, like roses and gardenias and honeysuckle, with an odd, spicy clove-like smell that she can't quite place that lingers in her hair.  
>Her bed, though, is soft and warm and inviting, and she is tired, so tired. She doesn't even have time to feel homesick before sleep claims her, driving her hard into nightmare after nightmare until she wakes, troubled, in the morning.<p> 


	3. Golden Girl

**((I know these chapters are extremely short - it is the way I planned it, as kind of snapshots, since that tends to be how memory works. If you're interested and enjoying this at all, please review! I'd love to hear from you. **

**As ever, anything recognizable belongs to Suzanne Collins.))**

* * *

><p><strong><strong>She expects her first day of training to be a disaster, because all she knows how to do is doctor horses and cattle and other animals, and has never held a weapon in her life.  
>But it turns out that she has steady hands and good balance and good aim, so she tries her hand at a variety of things, archery and throwing spears, knives, and axes, as well as hand-to-hand combat.<br>Most of it is a wash. She's strong in a wiry way, but not in any real way, not like Astor. Her family was never quite as...well fed...as his. His muscles have had more of a chance to grow. He's had more of a chance to grow. She thinks she's roughly the same size she was at thirteen.  
>Well. In most places, at least.<p>

The bow and arrows, the hand-to-hand, they don't work out. But the knives seem to fit in her hand, so she makes a mental note to look for some during the Games.  
>She's fast. She knows she's fast. She's had to be fast. So maybe, just maybe, she can dart in and out of the Cornucopia and make it out with her life and limbs.<p>

She learns to climb. To make snares. To at least be able to make an educated guess at what's poisonous and what's not. She learns what her body can and can't handle, temperatures, poisons, environment. And she watches Astor, who proves himself good with a crossbow, and she thinks that she wouldn't want to run into him, during the Games.  
>If he won't ally with her, she hopes he at least won't kill her.<br>She doesn't think she'd be able to keep hersemlf together, if he did.  
>And if she died, she was sure as hell going to be dignified about it.<br>After training they take her in, they take them all in, to be individually scored. She throws knives. She hits her target.  
>Someone whispers that she only learned how in training.<p>

The interviews come, and it's all moving faster than Cornelia wants it to.  
>She wishes time would slow down, slow enough to go backward, so that she would never have to enter the Arena. So that she could step back and back and back, down the stairs of the stage in front of the Justice Building, and back into her mother's arms.<p>

They dress her in gold.  
>No one ever asked her about angles or etiquette.<br>"Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely District Ten tribute, Miss. Cornelia Tegan!"  
>And before she can think, she's clicking across the stage in the strappy gold heels. Her stylists had seemed to be in love with her skin, bronzed from the sun but not freckled. And it was the gold in her hair that sealed her stylist's dressing decision.<br>The Golden Girl. She was the Golden Girl.  
>A fluttering golden dress that stopped just above the knee. Thin, sparkling-gold eyeliner. A triple-band of gold in her hair. Even shimmering gold nailpolish on her fingers and toes.<br>But the gold can't stop with her clothing.  
>It can't just be skin deep.<br>She has to be gold. She has to bleed gold.  
>So she does.<br>They question her and question her, and still she comes out shining, with the audience captivated mostly by the tales spun for her by the interviewer. And Astor compliments her, in a way. More of a diamond-in-the-rough take than Golden Girl and Golden Boy, which is more than fine with her.  
>She doesn't want to be latched to him, like horses to a cart. She can't.<br>If he dies, she can't stumble down with him.  
>And she doesn't want to drag him down if she goes down, first.<p>

They give her a nine, a solid nine, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

And then, the Games are coming and she spends another sleepless night staring through her window at the sprawling happy Capitol below

And wishes she could jump.


	4. Franticfranticfrantic

Her heart is beating, franticfranticfrantic, her veins feel as if they might jump right out of her skin, she has too much blood, too much blood, it could all be gone in then next five minutes, who knows.  
>She's dressed in ice-white and blue, a jacket lined with fur, boots with fur all along the insides, and she knows it's going to be cold, stone-cold, death-cold.<br>Her hands are buried in fur-lined gloves.  
>They feel new and clumsy, newborn, and she wonders how well she'll be able to throw knives, in these, so she takes the right one off and tucks it into her belt.<p>

And then the platform lifts and she doesn't have any time to think, not anymore, the Games are starting and her heart is in her throat and the blood is pounding in her head, now, waiting for death.  
>Her breath feels too shallow, as if her lungs aren't working properly.<br>Jump! Her mind is shrieking as the tube falls away and she's standing in glaring brightness. Jump!  
>There haven't been many Games. Not yet. But she knows enough to know there are mines below her, and if she jumps they'll blow her sky-high and she won't need to see another moment.<br>But she's not brave enough or cowardly enough or whatever vice/virtue that would take.  
>And she doesn't want her siblings to see her give up, that way.<br>If she gives up it will be private, it will look like an accident, it will look like she fought.  
>She will give them that, at least.<p>

Jump!Jump!Jumpjumpjump...  
>But they're counting down now,<br>7, 6, 5,  
>And her heart is slamming against her chest and her eyes are blinking rapidly. There's snow all around her and thick, snow-hazy pines and she just knows there are all kinds of ugly bears and wolves and Capitol muttations lurking in those dark, heavy trees.<br>4, 3, 2  
>She's breathing as rapidly as if she already been running. Every muscle is tense. Ready. Waiting.<br>1.

She runs. She runs faster than she's ever gone in her life because she sees a medium-sized pack and a set of knives and she wants them, needs them...  
>But she needs her life, too.<br>She snatches the knives without much of a problem, and there's one already in her hand, long and curved and dangerous. Lovely. The handle is warm in her hands already, as if its molding to her.  
>She could kill with this. Will kill with this, will have to, she knows it.<br>But not yet. Hopefully not yet.  
>The pack is next and it's close, and she's ducking around other Tributes already spilling blood, blood horribly red and horribly bright against the snow.<br>The bag is on her shoulder and she's running. An arrow whistles by her head and she wonders, vaguely, if it's Astor who is shooting. She hopes it isn't. She hopes he wouldn't.  
>But she knows he would.<p>

The woods are dark and deep and they send chills all up and down her spine. But they're thick, too, and good for hiding.  
>Her feet are soft and light on the snow, and they barely make a sound.<br>Water. She has to find water. She knows that much. Food, too, and shelter.  
>But she's not far enough away from the bloodbath, and who knows what's in her pack?<br>So she keeps going, weaving, taking twists and turns that make no sense until she can no longer hear the screams of the dying and the cries of the triumphant.  
>And then she sits on a fallen tree, pressing her bare right hand deep in the snow.<br>And she cries.


End file.
